Unconfirmed: GF Securities' Jeff Pu forecasts 257 million iPhones in 2026, the only growth among major phone makersUnconfirmed: GF Securities' Jeff Pu forecasts 257 million iPhones in 2026, the only growth among major phone makers

An unpublished investor note from GF Securities forecasts that Apple will be the only major smartphone maker to ship more phones in 2026 than in 2025.

The note, by analysts Jeff Pu and Henry Huang, was sent to investors this week and reported by 9to5Mac on 16 October. It has not been published, and every other outlet carrying its numbers repeats 9to5Mac's account, so for now there is one report of it. It is an analyst forecast, not a count of anything already shipped, and nobody has corroborated its figures. Apple does not report iPhone unit sales and has said nothing about it.

What does the GF Securities note forecast?

According to 9to5Mac, the analysts describe 2026 and 2027 as one of the hardest stretches the phone industry has had, and put most of it down to the rising price of memory. On their numbers Apple would ship more phones than Samsung for a third year running.

What does it say about iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Duo?

The note calls demand for the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max lukewarm, citing their weight and competition from Apple's own iPhone Duo. It puts 2026 builds of the two Pro models at 72 million, held back by the variable aperture camera, and iPhone Duo builds at 6 million rather than 7 million, because of the hinge. Those production figures are not new: MacRumors reported the same two numbers, and the same reasons, from Pu's note on 15 September. GF Securities still rates Apple a Hold with a $369 price target, also unchanged since then.

How does it compare with the third quarter?

The measured numbers point the other way for now. IDC's preliminary figures, published on 14 October, have Apple shipping 57.3 million iPhones in the third quarter, down 4.0 per cent, in a market that fell 22 per cent to 255.3 million. Apple's share rose to 22.4 per cent because everyone else fell further: Samsung was down 5.8 per cent, and Xiaomi, OPPO and vivo each lost about 30 per cent or more. IDC expects the market to stay constrained through 2027.

Our take

The share forecast is the easy part to believe. Counterpoint already measured iPhone at a record 22 per cent of third-quarter shipments, and IDC agrees within half a point. Our reading of both firms' tables is that memory hurts most where phones are cheapest: the brands losing a third of their volume sell mostly mid-range and budget phones, where memory is a bigger slice of the price, while Apple sells phones priced high enough to absorb more of the increase. Moving from 22 to 24 per cent over a full year is a modest step from there.

The growth figure is the harder one. A shrinking third quarter means the 4 per cent rise has to come largely from the last three months of the year, which is when the iPhone Duo ships. Yet the same note trims the Duo to 6 million units, which is little more than 2 per cent of 257 million, and calls the Pro models lukewarm. Nikkei separately reported that Apple cut October iPhone 18 Pro component orders by at least 15 per cent. Something has to carry the quarter, and the note, as relayed, does not say what.

The hinge cut does fit what else we have heard. Before Get Ready opened, unconfirmed reports put iPhone Duo assembly yields near 60 per cent, and US delivery dates now run into late January. A supply limit rather than a demand limit is the most plausible reading of the Duo number.

For developers, a larger Apple share in a smaller market changes little this year: the people buying new phones skew further towards iPhone, but the installed base moves slowly. The Duo is the exception to watch, because 6 million units in its first ten weeks is a small audience for apps being rebuilt around a folding screen. On the memory side, John Ternus has already called the shortage a crisis in his TIME interview, so the analysts and Apple at least agree on the cause.

Our weighting, then: APPDOOK treats the market share forecast as likely, the growth forecast as possible but unexplained, and the production figures as two months old. Apple's fiscal fourth quarter results on 2 November will report revenue rather than units, but they are the first hard number that can test any of it.